Dele Giwa: Newswatch hindered our probe, says investigator

In from Olumide Olaoluwa . . .
A retired police chief, Chris Omeben, who conducted the investigation into the murder of renowned journalist, Dele Giwa, has alleged “interferences from high places” stalled the process.
Giwa, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch Magazine, was killed through a parcel bomb at his Ikeja, Lagos residence on Oct. 19, 1986.
Twenty-nine years after the incident, Omeben said the unresolved assassination remains the most frustrating case of his career.
Omeben also noted that he also approached the management of Newswatch to produce a principal suspect to be quizzed, but he was resisted.
According to him, the Newswatch authorities instead of producing the suspect “started to insinuate that the assassination was masterminded by Babangida, Akilu etc.”
Omeben, a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), who turns 80 on Oct. 27, said on Monday that the high profile investigation was marred by interferences from “high places’’.
The DIG explained that even when he had narrowed in on the principal suspect, who could have thrown more light on the riddle, the suspect was allowed to escape from Nigeria.
He said: “They said somebody brought a parcel and his son Billy received the parcel and took it to his father (Dele Giwa), who was having his breakfast that morning.
“On the breakfast table was a man called Kayode Soyinka, he was there; Dele was there and then the son Billy handed over the parcel.
“And as he did so, I heard Soyinka left the table and went to the adjacent room.
“It was while he was there that the parcel detonated. Dele was injured and eventually died. The metal partition separating the dining room and the kitchen was destroyed.
“Beyond that, everything in the kitchen was destroyed. If metal could be mangled this way by the bomb, what of human flesh, what happened to Soyinka? Nobody could give me an answer.”
“My conclusion was that Soyinka knew what was coming and he left the room to hide behind the wall.”
He went on: “I took note of all these, went back to conduct an identification parade. We had an identification parade and got people of different physical attributes to be identified by the day watch.”
“Eventually, when one of those paraded was said to bear a resemblance to the person that delivered the bomb, in spite of my insistence to have the man quizzed, we could not.”
“Because interference now came from high places to protect the man.
“The man was said to be related to the wife of a governor at that time and as a result of his connection we came to a dead end on that lead,’’ the former police chief, who was in charge of the research department of the police CID, when Giwa was killed, said.
Omeben said the setback did not in any way deter him from using the evidence he had to follow the lead on Soyinka, and that he called on the Newswatch authorities to produce Soyinka.
“I have enough evidence to quiz Soyinka now. Please, Ray Ekpu can I have Soyinka now?

Read also: Soyinka vows to ‘draw blood’ with new book

“They resisted up till today. Up till today Soyinka never appeared before the police.
“They started to insinuate that the assassination was masterminded by Babangida, Akilu etc.”
“They said that Akilu ought to have been investigated.”
“As a matter of fact, I had interrogated Akilu and he told me that yes they had invited Dele Giwa some few days before the assassination over a negative statement he made about Nigeria in a New York newspaper.”
“He said that they had to invite him to tell him that he was wrong for portraying the country in bad light in the international press.”
“Akilu insisted that the invitation was not enough to accuse the government of complicity in the assassination of Dele Giwa.
“He satisfied me with his explanation. Togun also absolved himself with his own explanation.”
“The parcel bomb was said to have the Federal Government logo on it, which to me was not enough evidence.
“It was more of a circumstantial evidence. I can prove it!”
Buttressing this claim, he explained: “Go to any printing press if you are a ‘good’ criminal and you are planning well, they can print it for you and place it on the parcel, and it will look as if it came from the government.
“But for me to satisfy myself, I said please gentlemen, can I have Soyinka? Nobody! Soyinka ran away to London that was my principal suspect!”
“He did not appear until eventually I left the CID. I was retired from the police in 1989 and what happened after that I don’t know,” Omeben, an Archbishop of the Jesus Families Ministries at Iyana Ipaja, near Lagos added.

Responding to allegations made by Omoben, Soyinka said that he was not willing to be drawn into the matter afresh as he had stated his view in an interview he granted The Nation newspaper in 2013. He notes, “I don’t like narrating the story. I have said enough about it over the years. But there is somebody I must use this opportunity to respond to. I have been deliberately keeping quiet all these years that he has been writing about me, accusing me of being a suspect and even insinuated that I was the one who brought the bomb. That was the former Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Christopher Omeben, who investigated the horrific incident, and who I understand is now a pastor.

He did not believe that I could survive the bomb. He was unfair to me severally in the book that he wrote on Dele Giwa, and in an interview he granted The Sun Newspaper last year or so. He said in that interview that I ran to the toilet when the parcel bomb was delivered. That is not true. It’s a blatant lie. He got wrong information.

This man, who was not there when the bomb exploded. Whatever information he collected after the explosion was from some third, fourth or even tenth party, but he would stop at nothing trying to rope me in. But every time he tried to do that, he always failed because no one is listening to him and such accusations can never stick.

My survival was simply God’s miracle. And I will forever be grateful to Him while I pray that He continues to bless Dele’s soul. But the Pastor Omeben does not believe that such miracles can happen. He has never heard about a plane crash where hundreds of passengers have perished but small children, babies, survived. Isn’t that a miracle? Our Pastor Omeben has never heard about an earthquake that has brought down many buildings, turning a whole community into rubble and still over a month or so after, when all rescuers have left, abandoning the search for survivors, people are still being dragged out alive from the rubble”.

Yet Pastor Omeben still keeps wondering how I could have survived such a dreadful bombing without a scratch on my body. He forgot the terrible damage done to my eardrums and the continuous noise or echo in my both ears I had to carry everyday for about five years after the incident before they were healed. And even then, till today, I hear better from my right ear, while the left one which was nearer to the blast is weaker. Well, my answer to him is that he should keep asking. Those who sent the bomb to us are still here and walking about the streets freely. But Dele is not here and his mother has now gone to join him without getting justice. I am here only by the grace of the Almighty God. Definitely, God will deliver the ultimate judgment. If not here, at the great beyond when we all meet at His feet.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fear

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now